Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Jan O. confesses to Bodenfelde murders

Jan O., a 26-year-old suspect arrested Monday night, has confessed to murdering two teenagers in the Lower Saxony town of Bodenfelde.

Published: 27 November 2010 11:10 CET
Jan O. confesses to Bodenfelde murders
Photo: DPA

The suspect was led before a custodial judge on Friday in the presence of his lawyer Markus Fischer, and spent three hours answering the state prosecutor’s questions. He confessed to murdering first 14-year-old Nina and then 13-year-old Tobias, whose funeral takes place Saturday.

Jan O. choked Nina near her home on Monday, November 15, before dragging her to a nearby wood, where he beat her to death. Tobias was killed in the same woods the following Saturday because Jan O. apparently believed the boy would either discover Nina’s body or report him to the police.

Their bodies were found on Sunday near one another in a wooded area on the outskirts of Bodenfelde, where they lived.

Police arrested Jan O. aboard a train in the town on Monday night. They were led to him partly through a girl whom he approached on Saturday afternoon, giving her his mobile phone number.

Jan O. said he had wanted to attack Nina sexually, but had murdered her when she screamed and defended herself.

O.’s lawyer said the defendant’s statements disproved the prosecutor’s theory that he was motivated by “murder-lust,” and that O. had the potential to be a serial killer.

But it emerged earlier this week that O. also referred directly to the murder on his own Facebook page. According to the Göttinger Tageblatt newspaper, he wrote, “Butchered a girl yesterday. One every day until they catch me.” The police immediately shut down the page because it constituted evidence.

DAPD/bk

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

SHOW COMMENTS